XIAGUAN , an increasingly industrialized transport hub, lies on the southern shore of Er Hai Lake. It's also confusingly known as Dali Shi (Dali City), and some "Dali" buses from Kunming may actually terminate here - in which case catch public bus #4 as below. Xiaguan's main drag is Jianshe Dong Lu , a 500-metre-long street between Tai'an Lu in the east and Renmin Lu in the west. The airport is 15km east of here, for which you'll need a taxi; the train station is 2km east on Dianyuan Lu along the #5 and #6 bus routes. Long-distance buses stop at a number of depots along Jianshe Dong Lu, though the main bus station is down towards Renmin Lu. There's a cheap and basic hotel (up to ¥30) here, with the upmarket Xiaguan Fandian (tel 8072/2125859; ¥150-200), favoured by tour groups and with a CITS desk, about 100m east, and the mid-range Xiaguan Binguan (¥100-150) on the Jianshe Dong Lu-Renmin Lu corner. Markets and cheap places to eat fill the backstreets, and if you've got time to kill, go for a stroll in Erhai Gongyuan , a green, hilly park a couple of kilometres northeast of the centre on the lakeshore.

 

For Dali , catch public bus #4, which passes along Jianshe Dong Lu every hour (¥7). The main bus station has daily departures west to Baoshan , northeast to Jizu Shan and Lugu Hu via Binchuan , and, for the hardened traveller only, a nerve-shattering 72-hour run south to Jinghong in Xishuangbanna.